Someone Else's Ocean(31)

“Dead?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw his mouth was wide open.

“Oh, my God.”

Jasmine was nodding slowly, weighing my reaction as my scrambled brain tried to process the sight before us.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, honey, he’s gone. I’ll call an ambulance and meet you out front, okay?”

A towel lay a few feet from where he expired, and I picked it up quickly and covered his saluting soldier. My heart ripped at the sight of him. “Oh no, poor Mr. Harper. I’m so sorry.”

Jasmine bowed her head. “I have to live with that image for the rest of my life.”

“Jasmine!” I scolded as she pulled out her phone from her boobs and frantically dialed emergency services.

As she explained our situation, I took a seat next to Mr. Harper and took in the view he was blankly staring at. If that wasn’t the way to go, I didn’t know what was. He’d probably just taken a swim and sat down to dry off. In the distant water, a whale breached just as Jasmine came back into view, her shoulders slumped.

“You scared the hell out of me. I thought you were being attacked.”

“All I saw was an old man’s penis. It was horrific.”

I glowered at her. “Can you please have a little respect here? This poor man just died.”

“He was what, early eighties? And he died rich,” she shrugged. “He definitely didn’t read the warning on the Viagra box.”

“Jasmine?!”

“What?!”

“I really can’t handle this today.” She made her way inside the house and raided the cabinets until she found a bottle of vodka. She poured herself a healthy cup as the emergency sirens sounded down the street.

She drank a half glass and then downed the orange juice in the fridge.

Crossing my arms at the sliding glass door that separated the patio and large kitchen, I watched her fill another glass of juice. “Hope it wasn’t the OJ that did it.”

She sprayed the juice all over the counter before she gave me the stink eye. “Now you’ve got jokes.” She scrutinized me. “Wait, why are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Just go with it.”

She nodded.

I moved to again sit next to Mr. Harper. The silent blue water seemed appropriate for the cloudless sky.

Another whale breached in the distance. I saw the large fin as it flipped on its side before disappearing below the deep blue surface.

Without glancing his way, I spoke to him. “I hope you got to see them before you went.”

The whole situation was completely depressing. John Harper might have been wealthy, but he was alone when he died. Alone with his fortune and his twenty-million-dollar view. Suddenly nothing about the water calmed me and my whole body broke out into a sweat.

Did he die knowing he was loved? Did he sit on that chair and mentally list his regrets? Did he call for help? I sat up as my throat began to burn. What if we could have helped him if we’d shown up a few minutes before. I looked over at his gaping mouth and sprang from the seat, my heart pounding.

“Koti?”

“I…” I held my chest as Jasmine crossed the deck to get to me. I stood mute as a wave of nausea hit. My chest tightened unbearably, and I looked to her in a full-fledged panic. “He was alone! That’s not right. It’s not right!”

“Koti,” Jasmine said with a small shake in her voice. “Baby, you can’t take this into yourself.”

“What if we could have helped him?”

“It happens. This stuff happens,” she said in a soothing voice as the sirens grew closer. “Try and calm down.”

“You know I hate that! Don’t tell me to calm down!”

“Okay babe, you’re having a freak-out. It’s cool. I’m here. Deep breaths.” She got to me just before my legs gave out and gripped me tightly to her.

“No.”

“It’s okay,” she said, gripping my hand. “Let’s just breathe.”

“Get away from me, please. I can’t breathe.”

“Koti, you are breathing. Come on, baby, just breathe. You can do this.”

“He was alone!”

“I know. I’m sorry I made a joke. In… out. You can do this.”

“I don’t have my pills.”

“You don’t need them, you’ve gone all this time without them. It’s just life. Let’s make it through this. Come on buddy, breathe.”

“Get away from me!” I shrieked, trying to pull away, but she held on tighter. The sirens blared outside the house as I began to melt down.

“Okay, Koti, listen,” Jasmine said softly “everything is okay.”

My body shook uncontrollably as I continued to try to yank my hand away. She stood undeterred. “Breathe, one, two, three…”

Pound. Pound. Pound.

“The door is open!” Jasmine yelled while she kept me captive in her stare and instruction.

“Please let me go.”

“Can you walk over to the couch?”

I pulled away from her as the medic emerged from the patio door and eyed us.

Jasmine, still engaging me fully, nodded toward the chair that held Mr. Harper. The man rushed to his side as his partner looked at me. I averted my eyes as I breathed in again trying to calm myself.